Imagining a New Volk: German-American Nationalism in the Age of the Revolution

German colonists who participated in the American Revolution did so in a number of ways that were comparable to their Anglo-American neighbors. Yet German Patriots also had a unique method of expressing American nationalism: their vocabulary. While using the German language in the New World was often a means of preserving identity and cultural institutions, it also provided an avenue through which they could assert a hybrid German-American identity: the word Volk. This paper focuses primarily on the changes in the writings of Henry Miller, the foremost German-American who cast his lot with the Patriot cause. It tracks a shift in his use of language during the American Revolution and demonstrates how he used the concept of Volk first to assert a distinct colonial identity and later to invent an America nation for German consumption.

Floating Roots: Agnès Varda's Uncle Yanco

This article traces one source of Agnès Varda's artistic inspiration to Jean “Yanco” Varda, the subject of her 1967 short film Uncle Yanco (US/France). Jean Varda was a peripatetic artist who lived on a houseboat and was part of a bohemian circle that included Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Alan Watts, and other luminaries of the San Francisco counterculture. Both Vardas were gleaners and artists. The author argues that both saw the imagination as a place where matter and spirit were reconciled. The article builds on previous work about Varda's The Gleaners and I (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, France, 2000), exploring Varda's materialist feminism and her use of earthly and tactile materials. The author focuses not only on matter but also on the imagination and the intangible images, colors, and forms that are prominent in her oeuvre, arguing that Yanco served as a muse to his niece.

Introduction

As one studies Crumb from the outset of his career to the present, it becomes evident that he has embarked on a massive autobiographical enterprise in which personal, secret “confessions”—in a mode reminiscent of figures as diverse as Saint Augustine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henry Miller, and Allen Ginsberg—are made public and merge with the topics to which he is drawn in literature. This Introduction explores Crumb’s traumatic childhood and his early decision to become an artist, the influence of his two brothers on his early intellectual development as well as his rejection of organized religion. The focus then turns to a discussion of Crumb’s role as the genius of the “comix revolution” which was launched during Crumb’s time in San Francisco when Zap magazine was created. The chapter closes with a brief summary of the contents of each chapter. R. Crumb: Literature, Autobiography, and the Quest for Self aims to fill a major gap in contemporary scholarship in the humanities.

Carpeaux, leitor de Henry Miller

Análise de três textos de Carpeaux que destacam a obra literária de Henry Miller, escritor maldito norteamericano: “Literatura erotomaníaca”, “Literatura ou pornografia?” e “Trópico de câncer, de Henry Miller”. O crítico insere-se no debate em torno do erotismo literário, perpassando questões relativas à censura, à moral e à sexualidade. A crítica de Carpeaux revela uma vertente dinâmica, na medida em que o autor revisita seus escritos e os reelabora, no interesse de atualizar posições construídas sobre a obra de Henry Miller.